Issue No 8, 30th November 2021 - Owairoa Primary School
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Issue No 8, 30th November 2021
Welcome Back to School We were delighted to welcome back 324 of our students with surnames A ~ L on Thursday and our 302 of our students with Surnames M ~ Z on Friday of the first week back after the lockdown. The students arrived at the school gates full of enthusiasm and excitement as they returned to greet their classmates and teachers. The feeling was one of love and care for each other and like a long lost reunion. Our Year 4 ~ 6 students and a number of our younger students managed their masks very sensibly, as everyone exercised caution and good safety protocols. We are appreciative of parents preparing your children as they return to the realities of part time, staggered learning at school. Overall, the classrooms are very settled with lots of positive vibes going on and sounds echoing of fun and laughter as the students happily interact with each other. Our staff are also grateful to be able to return to school, as they come to grips with what appears to be our “new normal” We love having the school open again and may our good fortune continue.
Wrapped up in Reading Excitement levels were high on Monday 16 August, as the school gates opened and in walked Pharaohs, Mummies and Egyptians. Even the odd sphynx came to school that day. This meant our much anticipated ‘Wrapped Up in Reading” Book Week was finally here. While the week-long event really didn’t turn out according to plan (because we really didn’t predict Auckland would go into a sudden Alert Level 4 lockdown on Day 3 of Book Week) our students will still have many fond memories of the two day long antics that comes with our exciting Owairoa Book Week events. Monday saw our students participating in a school-wide parade, which is always a highlight of the week. The costumes were amazing, so special thanks must go to all those Parents who put in a lot of effort to ensure their little Pharaohs, Mummies and even the odd pyramid or two were in costume, ready to join in the fun. Classes arranged many themed book week lessons for our learners, and students enjoyed many events including Mrs ‘Rice-opatra’ arranging a Treasure Hunt for the Junior Students to complete around the school, looking for Egyptian themed clues from the story she shared with each of the classes. The whole purpose of Book Week is to celebrate reading, so over the course of Monday and Tuesday, the song “walk like an Egyptian” would play through our classroom speakers, and we would all drop what we were doing, and read for 10 minutes. Classes took turns to go into our school hall, to visit the display of books. We walked through the amazing hall foyer display, and into hall, which our Book Week committee of Teachers had magnificently transformed into an Egyptian oasis. Special thanks to Raj Tents for donating the beautiful tent that was the centre piece of the hall display. The hall looked incredible. It was a shame that the Book Week was ‘wrapped up’ a little earlier than we anticipated, when the Government announced we were going into a sudden lockdown, but we were pleased that the first two days saw many books being purchased, getting more reading books into homes. Special thanks to Mrs Rice for leading our Book Week for 2021. Thanks also to our fantastic Book Week committee for all their work setting up the hall and the various events and also to Mrs Blake for liaising with the Scholastics team. Stay tuned for an even more exciting (and hopefully a bit less eventful) Book Week in 2022.
Mrs. Frisby - A Metaphor Poem
Inside you is a compassionate, big hearted
Tender, thoughtful and merciful, ity bity little mouse.
Inside you is a praise of sunlight, brightening up the whole
universe and each and everyone that has met you.
Inside you is a jet-propelled rapid, dashing,
speedy jet plane getting ready to zoom across the sky.
Inside you is a rose, blooming with joy and happiness.
Inside you is an adventurous, bold-courageous-heroic hero
you always come to the rescue.
Inside you is a dazzling mouse, you gleam and glow through darkness.
Inside you is the colour pink, you have a colourful gleaming personality.
Inside you is a best friend you are…… a sweetheart.
Joanna Adil, Year 4
My Dad’s Legs Inside Me: A Metaphor Poem
Are ginormous skyscrapers; Inside me is a violet: I am always gentle and caring.
His feet, miniature rockets; Inside me is a speedy cheetah: I am fast when I need to be.
His arms, bendy branches. Inside me is a cup of hot cocoa: I can be as warm.
His bravery is that of a knight; Inside me is a drunken chipmunk: at home I can be often crazy.
His speed, a supersonic legend. Inside me is a flow of aqua water: I can be as quiet as silent
Running water.
Swift as a cheetah, Inside me is an exhausted farmer: I am always busy at home at
My dad everywhere!
Is a real life superhero. Inside me is an attractive bunny: everyone in my family says so.
Hobie Matulis, Year 5 Claira Shi, Year 4
Spring Holidays
Exploring the warm weather, running through rain drop
covered grass.
Chasing my dog through the bright colours and losing him for a
moment.
Cloud watching while listening to the pīwakawaka and tuī songs.
Baby animals jump and pounce through the long grass where
the sky is blue and sunny.
The flowers ore full of pollen waiting for the bees to come and
collect it.
Spring is a frame of colours and peaceful quiet butterflies.
Spring is a picture perfect holiday in a field.
Spring is heaven.
Ebony Suasua, Year 5
Charlotte Dixon – Tainui House Leader
My name is Charlotte Dixon and I am 10 years old. My favourite colour is purple and I
like to play basketball and the drums.
I love that we have great education at Owairoa and the teachers and children are
friendly. Kaitiaki is one of the positive opportunities offered at Owairoa because we get
to do Trees for Survival and much more.
My favourite schooling memory is making so many friends and getting to join all the
amazing opportunities here, like the interschool softball competition and tip top fun day,
being included in the choir, Kaitiaki, the chess team and trees for survival.
I am grateful for having kind friends, a great teacher and being involved in so many
things here at Owairoa.
Jahi Onkoba - Tokomaru House Leader
My name is Jahi Onkoba. I am 11 years old. I’m half Kenyan, half Maori and I have 3
siblings.
What I love about Owairoa is that there is something for everyone. There is interschool
sport for athletic people, chess club for thinking minds and much more. There are so
many positive opportunities for senior students, like House Leader, mediator, kaitiaki and
road patrol. It takes a big responsibility to have one of these jobs.
My favourite schooling memory is my class winning the Hilton Cup when I was in Year 5.
We had beaten the best team in the school in the semi-final and won our final game by 4
goals, making us the 2020 Hilton Cup winners.
I am grateful that I have had so many wonderful teachers over the years helping me. I also love being a House Leader
for Tokomaru House in 2021.
Online Auction Extravaganza
This year has not
disappointed when it
comes to making history.
I am not talking about
Auckland spending over
90 days in lockdown or
William Shatners real life
space rocket ride. I am talking about the Owairoa PTA online auction
extravaganza!
The PTA auction made Owairoa history by being the first fundraiser of
its type we have ever held, and to top it off it was run entirely online
and during a pandemic with the Auckland region under level 3 and 4
restrictions! Auction items ranged from Frujus to a visit from our own
local hero - Batman in what was possibly the most eclectic range of
goods and services on offer.
All this was made possible by Owairoa families and businesses in the
extended community, donating goods and services to be auctioned,
coupled with the hardworking parents behind the scenes pulling the
event together and of course our enthusiastic bidders placing those
all-important bids! The auction was not only a HUGE success but a true
community effort. Thank you to all involved.
We would also like to congratulate the winners of the poster competition
which was held to help promote the event. Each of the students who
won received a family pass to Zone Bowling in Botany which I am sure
they are looking forward to using in the near future.
Five, four, three, two… JUNIOR MATHS WEEK!! Maths week is a New Zealand wide event and is now in its 23rd year of operation. It happens once a year and was held on the 9th to 13th August. Our junior school planned a week full of daily challenges and different problem solving activities. The week started off by guessing how many teachers could fit on the giant’s chair. The next day, students were asked to estimate how many emails Mr McIntyre would receive from 9.00 am to 10.00 am. On Wednesday, students estimated how many unifix cubes tall Mrs Rice was. Thursday saw students estimating how many marbles were in the jar. The week ended with students estimating how many shots into the basketball hoop Mr Basson would make in 1 minute. It was great to see parents estimating through our @owairoaprimary Instagram page. Classes completed several fun tasks that involved students to problem solve. Room 8 programmed the bee bots with certain instructions so they could go around objects. Room 4 had a challenge who could make the longest paper chain only using one piece of paper in a set amount of time and Room 1 created paper planes to see who could fly the furthest. Thank you to all the junior school teachers for making Maths Week so enjoyable.
World Famous on Instagram
Are you following us on Instagram? We post new photographs each day, so follow us @OwairoaPrimary
to see daily snapshots of school life here at #owairoa
Download the Instagram App from the App Store or Google Play Store and follow us @owairoaprimary
www.instagram.com/owairoaprimary
I ACCESSORY DAY
CHRISTMAS
FOOD BANK DONATI ON l.nz/.
Wednesday 1st December 2021
Dear Parents / Guardians,
On next Tuesday 7th December (A-L Surnames) and
Wednesday 8th December (M-Z Surnames) we will
celebrate “Christmas Accessory Day”. All students have
the option of wearing some form of Christmas Accessory
together with their normal school uniform. Examples
could be a Christmas hat, necklace, lights, brooch etc.
For the privilege of wearing the Christmas Accessory all
students are asked to bring along one food item (canned
or sealed packet) which will be donated to the Community
Food Bank.
Alternatively, if you would like to make a family donation
to purchase food items for the Foodbank, you can easily
make your contribution through our Kindo online School
Shop on the following link http://kindo.owairoa.school.nz/.
Capital Works Despite a slight delay caused by the Alert Level 4 Lockdown in August, a shortage of building materials as a result of Covid-19, and other associated building supply delays, works have now resumed and are progressing well with our two major building projects within the school. Project One – repairs to water damage and replacement of aerial bridges. The water tightness repairs are now complete, and our senior students were excited to move back into their classrooms just before the lockdown. One of the two new replacement aerial bridges is now fully complete, giving our staff and students access the two storey block again. We have temporary stairs in place while the finishing touches are being made to the other bridge. The project is still on target to be finished at the end of this year. Project Two – construction of our new two storey 18 classroom block. We were excited to hear that the final three classrooms Room 27, 28 and 29 were demolished during the lockdown period, and have come back on school site to see that work is now well underway for preparing the area for landscaping. Our 18 classroom block continues to make great progress, with the massive external steps being started this week. While a bit behind schedule with the delays due to lockdown, we are still looking forward to moving into the new block during the 2022 academic year.
School Organisation for 2022
Our staffing and funding entitlement for 2022 has been received from the Ministry of Education. Our school
structure for next year has been finalised and we are now considering student class placement. To assist us
to be as accurate as possible with our class lists, we would appreciate hearing from you if your child/children
are leaving Owairoa Primary School at the end of 2021 (this does not include those students who are
currently in Year 6). We would also like to hear from school families who have siblings starting school who
are not yet enrolled and also from friends and neighbours who intend to enrol at Owairoa Primary School.
ask for the perfect
gift at our office December peal
7th Food Bank Mufti Day Ap
(surname A-L )
peal
8th Food Bank Mufti Day Ap
(suranme M- Z)
Positive Affirmation
for the day
Wishing you all a safe and secure
journey for the rest of Term 4.
A GIFT SOLUTION
With kind regards
from your “family”
Alan McIntyre
PRINCIPALBEFORE SCHOOL CARE: 7.00AM - 8.30AM
AFTER SCHOOL CARE: 3.00PM - 6.00PM
SCHOOL HOLIDAYS: 7.30AM - 6.00PM
ENROL VIA OUR WEBSITE OR POP INTO THE PROGRAMME,
IF YOU HAVE ANY OTHER QUERIES
CALL OUR OFFICE: 09 530 9020 OR THE PROGRAMME: 021 837 051
Special Cakes for Special Occasions
Call
Now
274 7744 /thegateauhouse
www.gateauhouse.co.nz
HOWICK & ST HELIERS ACADEMY OF JUDO
TEACHING DISCIPLINE,
CONTROL AND CONFIDENCE
THROUGH JUDO
B.D.S., M.D.S.(OTAGO).
Specialist Orthodontics for Children and Adults Contact Lester Harris
4 Bleakhouse Rd, Howick, Auckland 2014 021583654
W: www.derekbarwoodorthodontist.co.nz office@howickjudo.com
P: (09) 535 4311 | E: reception@dbo.co.nz www.howickjudo.com
100 Picton Street, Howick
Ph 534 5565
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